Levi Strauss created the first pair1 of blue jeans in 1873. He went to San Francisco to make his money in the gold rush but found more success using denim and rivets to make pants that would last longer. They were actually called waist overalls until 1960 when baby boomers began calling them jeans. In…
Competing Takes
In the wake of the recent college admissions bribery scandal that ensnared Aunt Becky and a whole host of other wealthy people, there were generally two takes from the content/social media apparatus: (1) College is a meritocracy that benefits the rich. It shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone that rich people pull strings to get…
Animal Spirits Episode 73: The Expectations Gap
This week’s Animal Spirits with Michael & Ben is sponsored by YCharts: Mention Animal Spirits and receive 20% off your subscription price when you initially sign up for the service. We discuss: What Congress doesn’t understand about financial services. The college admissions bribery scandal. Does it matter where you went to college? Can tech companies solve higher education?…
The Market Won’t Provide High Returns Just Because You Need Them
The late-Peter Bernstein once wrote, “The market’s not a very accommodating machine; it won’t provide high returns just because you need them.” When you do need higher investment returns because of a perceived shortfall in assets for a specific goal you generally have 3 options to remedy the situation: (1) Adjust your expectations, and therefore,…
Talk Your Book: The Low Volatility Anomaly
Today’s Animal Spirits: Talk Your Book is presented by Invesco: We discuss: What is the low volatility anomaly? Why financial theory doesn’t always translate into the real world The three behavioral and structural reasons for the low vol anomaly How often do different factors overlap with one another? How the market environment impacts low vol…
Will the U.S. Continue to Dominate?
Elroy Dimson, Paul Marsh, and Mike Staunton have been publishing the following chart in their annual update for some time now and every single year it blows me away: The U.S. market share looks like Pac Man preparing to eat the rest of the world. Michael and I discussed some of the reasons for the U.S. dominance…
Daniel Kahneman on Intuition
Behavioral finance is still only a few decades old at this point because the finance industry was a little late to the game in understanding that investment decisions are driven almost exclusively by human emotions and biases. Now that human psychology has grown in importance in the field, the bible to anyone serious about understanding…
The Art of Repetition
When my wife and I discovered we were having twins I knew my time and energy management skills were going to be put to the test. We already had a toddler at home so we knew what to expect in terms of sleep (or lack thereof) and the amount of care newborns need. Multiplying that…
Animal Spirits Episode 72: Where Were You At the Bottom?
This week’s Animal Spirits with Michael & Ben is sponsored by YCharts: Mention Animal Spirits and receive 20% off your subscription price when you initially sign up for the service. We discuss: Where we were in our careers when the market bottomed 10 years ago Star fund managers Is Bill Gross happy? Persistence in performance may be the…
Is It Worth It To Be a Famous Fund Manager Anymore?
Bill Gross had a surprisingly candid interview with Robin Wigglesworth of the Financial Times this week. Multiple times he mentioned his desire for fame as a fund manager: “I wanted to be famous because I wanted to be loved . . . so I pursued that obsessively,” he reflects at one point. “Shit, that’s why…
